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tv   Martin Bashir  MSNBC  December 28, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm PST

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it's friday december 28th and it is game on at the white house. >> ifs and ands and buts are like candy and nuts. >> if you're making $900,000 somehow he thinks you can't afford to pay a little more in taxes. >> here we are once again at the end of the year staring at a crisis we should have dealt with. >> the house of representatives is operating with dictatorship of the speaker. >> we can iron out our differences. >> republicans have bent over backwards. we stepped way, way out of our comfort zone. >> john boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership. >> it is very hard for them to say yes to me. take me out of it. and think about their voters. >> he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in american history. ♪ we could have had it all ♪ rolling in the deep >> we start at the white house where at this very moment all
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four republican and democratic congressional leaders are meeting with the president, the vice president, and the treasury secretary trying to hammer out a fiscal cliff deal. the meeting began about an hour ago in what could be the final face-to-face meeting between the president and lawmakers of both parties before monday's midnight deadline. the house is scheduled to reconvene on sunday evening to do what we don't exactly know. so joining us live from the white house is nbc's kristin welker. kristin, welcome. >> reporter: thanks, karen. good afternoon. >> so what are we hearing about this meeting? i know it's still going on. any news? >> reporter: well, we do know this, a source familiar with these talks says that president obama is not going to be offering anything new during this afternoon's meeting. he's essentially going to be saying what he said at the white house last friday when he called on congress to put forth a package that would extend bush era tax cuts for those making $250,000 or less, extend unemployment insurance benefits, as well as stave off some of those deep spending cuts that
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are set to go into effect. the president is going to make the argument that he believes this can pass through both houses, but, of course, there is a big question mark over that. i have been speaking with republican aides on the hill who say house republicans are really waiting to see what the senate does at this juncture before they weigh in on anything that the president might say during today's meeting. but, of course, we will have to wait and see what actually happens. we're hoping the congressional leaders will talk to us and we'll have more information about what happened. >> it seems the political dynamics essentially in this meeting are -- he's not putting anything new on the table. he's saying here is the deal, what can you deliver? at this point it really comes down to mcconnell and boehner and what they think they can deliver, and based on what boehner can deliver, i think the other key player in this is going to be leader nancy pelosi because she may have to deliver some democratic votes to get something done. >> reporter: absolutely. pelosi and mcconnell are really going to sort of step into the center stage at this point in time.
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they are going to be crucial as well as, of course, house speaker john boehner, but really there's going to be a lot of focus right now on the senate because, as you remember, house speaker john boehner tried to get his own bill passed through the house. that didn't happen. he didn't have enough votes, so essentially everything shifts right now to the senate. so harry reid, mitch mcconnell, nancy please elosi on the house to say here are the number of democrats i could get if you offer a compromise package. but this is really a tough situation because there's so little time left and we've already seen the markets impacted by this. so if we do go over the cliff, if you look at the polls, most americans saying republicans will bear the brunt. they will blame republicans, but the bottom line is the president will get a lot of blame as well because this is going to impact a lot of people. >> right. nbc's kristin welker keeping us honest at the white house. we will stand by. thank you. >> reporter: thank you. joining us for analysis are
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two of my favorite guys, both former chairs of the democratic committee, pk to you both. >> karen. >> thanks, karen. >> governor rendell, i'm going to start with you, what do you make of this meeting? to some degree -- do we really expect we're going to get some substance out of this meeting or is this more for the optics so both sides can say they tried one more time? >> i think it's a little more for the optics. look, one thing i think all americans should be aware of is that washington has failed us again. because even if we get something that avoids the fiscal cliff by some makeshift deal, it's not addressing the real problem, and the real problem is somehow we're going to come up with $1.2 trillion or more in revenue and significant spending cuts on all sides including military cuts and entitlement cuts so we can actually put our debt under control. until we do that, all we're doing is kicking the can down the road.
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now, is there a value to kicking the can down the road in avoiding the fiscal cliff? yes. but if they go over the cliff and then fix it in the next week with another stopgap, is there any real harm? who knows. if that make it is easier for republicans to vote for it, is it a disaster? probably not. but understand we had seven weeks in which we could have a done a big deal which would have gotten the debt under control, would have caused the economy to -- it would have been a catalyst to have this economy take off, and we blew it. we blew it. >> you know, governor dean, to that point here we are essentially looking over the abyss of the fiscal cliff, and i know you have said in the past let's just go over the cliff and start from scratch. do you still think that's the way to go? >> i do. actually, i hope they never come to a deal because this is the best deficit reduction package the democrats are ever going to get. but let's look at what really is going to happen here. i would be more surprised if they came to a deal in the next
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five days than i was by the roberts vote on obama care. there's no way these guys are going to come to a deal, and the reason is this. the president has got the upper hand, and his most important partner is the weakest person in this, which is john boehner. john boehner is on the verge of losing credibility with his caucus. he can't take a deal to his caucus that will pass without the help of nancy pelosi, which will pull the entire deal to the left. so what they have to do is they have to go over the cliff. we're just talking about politics, we're not talking about finances here. they have to go over the cliff. that strengthens boehner's hands because now everybody is paying a hell of a lot more taxes and people are blaming the republicans, and now boehner can go to the caucus and maybe get 200 and a few votes and then with nancy pelosi pick off a few democrats and make some kind of deal. having said that, the best thing for the country is never to come to a deal because ed rendell is right. as a former governor, we don't operate with big deficits. you can't do that and we're in trouble in this country
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financially. the long term and in the short term, yes, we'll have a recession. it won't be a bad one but it will be one and nobody wants a recession. in the long term i think wall street goes crazy and you will see 15,000, 17,000 in the dow because finally somebody has done something serious about the deficit. i don't believe they will if they come to an agreement. >> you know, governor rendell, i want to know if you agree with governor dean. part of the message, one of the things that strikes me, the message for so long has been we can't go over the cliff, we can't go over the cliff. here are all the things that will happen to individual americans if we go over the cliff. there's a lot of anxiety out there. we've been hearing about that, we've seen the markets up and down. to some degree, i understand the political arguments but in terms of the argument of the stability of the country and our economy, do you agree with governor dean that maybe the best thing is to go over the cliff? >> again, i think howard's sentiment is right and i'm co-chair of the organization campaign to fix the debt, and we want a big deal. certainly going over the cliff gets us a big deal.
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but i don't think we need to do it that way, karen. whether -- we can't do a big deal before december 31st, so let's go -- if we have to go over the cliff, go over the cliff, but then in the next two weeks or so or three weeks, let's put together a real deal, and a real deal means everybody doesn't like it. and that means that we democrats are going to have some things in there that we don't like. too much -- big cuts in social spending, real entitlement reform we may agree with. and the president has already put that on the table, some things that the democratic base is kicking their heels up about. but we've got to do that if we're going to get $1.2 trillion or $1.2 trillion in revenue. >> but, guys, here is the question i have and governor, i'm going to start with, the question i have when i hear that is -- again, i get the politics, but what's to say we go over the cliff, what he is to say that we'll be able to get the republicans back to the table, the president will be able to get the republicans back to the table and get a deal in a couple
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of weeks? i mean, given that, like you said, we had seven weeks and we couldn't get a deal, why will two more weeks in january be any different? governor dean? >> because everybody's taxes are going up and the pressure is going to be on the republicans to do something. i am fearful they will do something. this is where ed and i disagree. i think the fix the debt is fine and good but the ceos that are backing it will be the ones that primarily benefit. this is a bipartisan deal that was put together in august of 2011 so we could raise the debt ceiling. this deal is a great deal if you're a democrat. if you're a progressive. it's not a perfect deal. there's some bad stuff on human services cuts as ed points out, but by and large entitlements are left alone which has been to be dealt with at some point, big cuts in defense. we haven't seen that in 30 years. we go back to paying the taxes when bill clinton was president of the united states and the economy was a hell of a lot better when bill clinton was president than it is today. i don't think the fiscal cliff is all that bad a deal looking at it from the point of view of
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a progressive democrat. it's not perfect, but i worry about ceos that are funding fix the debt because, you know, they got us into this in the first place. i don't have a lot of faith in their ability to get us out. one more thing, you know, if there's a deal between the democrats and the republicans, i guarantee you the democrats and the republicans will make out just fine. i'm not so sure about the american people. >> governor rendell -- thanks governor dean for that one. i want to pick up on something you said about kicking the can down the roads. one of the things that had been an issue had been taking the debt ceiling conversation off the table. republicans want to keep it as a point of leverage. it sounds like it's not going to be part of whatever gets negotiated. doesn't that mean though so we kick a lot of big issues down the road and then the republicans go into january with a big piece of leverage on this debt creeling? >> yeah. except i think the american people would turn against the
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republicans even worse than they're going to turn against them for not getting this done and if taxes go up because it's clear that you can't play politics with something like that. the financial repercussions are so great. listen, the only difference between howard and i is the difference between new england lutherans and pennsylvania quakers. we pennsylvania quakers still believe that people of good faith can come to something -- can reach an agreement that will benefit the country and benefit the overall good. and i think we can. and, look, howard made a very good point when he talked about going over the cliff. going over the cliff doesn't change the entitlement programs and the entitlement programs will not make it, even with what the president did, medicare is only solvent until 2020. and -- or 2024. we've got to be serious about those problems for our grand kids, and we've got to get serious because we've got -- look what we've got on the
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agenda. we have guns, immigration, we've got energy, infrastructure, we've got education. >> it's a big list. >> it's time this government acts together, and if we can't get together on this, we are in trouble all the way. >> all right. my governors, thanks very much and have a really happy new year. >> thanks, karen. coming up, it's not just the fiscal cliff. the president has a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. stay with us. >> the president goes off 18 hours on the golf course, 20 hours in the air. how do you view this politically? >> he's been using this, and i must say with great skill and ruthless skill and success to fracture and basically shatter the republican opposition. we're all having such a great year in the gulf, we've decided to put aside our rivalry. 'cause all our states are great.
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talks on the fiscal cliff are still continuing at the white house at this time. now, this might be first big battle in president obama's second term, but there is no shortage of tough battles beyond it. and so much to do and so little time, so little political capital to use to fight those battles. so what is a second-term president to do in if you ask progressive supporters, they might offer an agenda that builds on big victories from the past year, a new push on comprehensive immigration reform, the health care implementation, women's votes, voting rights and the rights of the lgbt community. many of these are fights where the president has largely been absent. take guns or the environment, for example. and let's not forget about the rest of the world where any number of foreign policy
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entanglements could overwhelm the most carefully laid plans. let's bring in dana milbank and msnbc contributor jonathan capehart also of the "washington post" to help me sort out how does a man get it done in the second term? dana, you know, they say that the second term a president really has about 18 months to get anything done and after that you're pretty much a lame duck. now, of all the things i just listed, what do you think he should and what do you think he will try to tackle first? >> well, karen, first of all, i don't think he needs to surrender to the idea that he only has that 18-month period. it's not without precedent to achieve things later in the term. so, first of all, it's not necessarily such a narrow window. the other thing is assuming we have to do something with the fiscal cliff here, but even once that's done and presume lbl awhat we're looking at now is more of a smaller short-term fix, that doesn't mean he's going to take his eye off the
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economy. he learned the lesson of this early in his first term when he said, okay, we took care of that, we did the stimulus, let's move on to health care. it would be perilous to move away from the economy for this president. in terms of other issues, certainly immigration is low-hanging fruit and he can move very quickly on that. and he needs to move very quickly on guns because if he doesn't move very quickly, he's not going to get anything on that. >> agreed. jonathan, there was a lot to cheer for in twafl, support for marriage equality, health care reform, we moved closer to full recognition of the dream act, not to mention the election itself which was a big victory. but, you know, those victories are going to have to be preserved and we know there's going to be more on a lot of those issues coming in 2013. the states have to implement obama care. we have seen republican governors dragging their feet on that. isn't there a danger some of these gains can be lost. in addition to some of the things the president has on the table, we also have some other things that still need some work? >> right.
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and health care and on gay rights in particular, marriage equality, those are things that are almost out of the president's hands, especially when it comes to what the supreme court is going to do. republican governors are dragging their feet on implementing obama care. i'm not sure what the president can do to cajole them into complying since the supreme court ruled that he couldn't coerce them by threatening their medicare funding, medicaid funding. again, when it comes to gay rights and what the court is going to do, you know, i think the administration along with everything else has to wait and see what the court rules in june in terms of what -- whether there's a constitutional right to marry or how they rule in terms of the prop 8 case in california or the doma case in new york and the implications that will have for gay couples around the country. >> dana, since the sandy hook elementary school shootings on
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december 14th, there have been almost 250 gun deaths in north america or just about 13 gun deaths for each day, and even this morning we learned there was a shooting at a police station in camden, new jersey. so, you know, you mentioned gun control as an issue that the president needed to really get working on pretty quickly in january. how is that going to compete with other agenda items and how will the president and i would also say the outside groups really keep the pressure on to make sure that something meaningful happens? >> you know, that's a very good question, karen, and in a sense i wonder if it's already too late. if you don't act on these things quickly, people stop talking about it. the gun rights activists and the nra don't stop talking about it. they regain the traction they had momentarily lost. there is still hope for that issue, but the president really needs to move on that in january wile also remembering that the first three priorities are the economy, the economy, and the
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economy. >> how -- i think part of the sad reality is there will continue to be gun violence between now and the time that any legislation is proposed, but how do we keep the pressure on, and again i think this question of getting something meaningful done because as dana pointed out, we know the nra isn't stopping. they are knocking on doors and making phone calls. how do we make sure something doesn't get watered down in the enand we get something meaningful? >> the key thing is to remember that the president has the bully pulpit and there are 535 people on capitol hill who can do something by sending a bill to the president that he can sign into law, but none of that is going to happen unless the anger that was there in the immediate hours and days of sandy hook, unless that continues to boil and that folks, you know, from their lrms, at their computers, on the phone burning up the phone lines on capitol hill to make it clear that the american people haven't forgotten, the american people are still
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mourning, still angry about what happened to the slaughter of 20 innocent children and 6 adults, that they want something to change this time. last night, karen, i was watching bowling for columbine and a chill went through me because they're talking about an incident from 1999. the movie is from the early 2000s and yet some of the same arguments, some of the same explanations for what happened or why things happened the way they happened, you know, the anger of parents and how they wanted something to change, and here we are in 2012 and nothing has changed. >> i'm going to interrupt you. we're seeing live pictures here on the screen. we have nancy pelosi, looks like her chief of staff with her. seems that may be a sign that the meeting has broken up. we also heard some reports that perhaps speaker boehner may have left the meeting. i want to do a quick question to both of you as we're sort of watching these folks depart. on the fiscal cliff, i'm going
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to just make it real simple and start with you dana and go to you, jonathan. deal or no deal? are we going to get a deal, dana? >> well, they're going to have to eventually. the question is -- >> maybe not. not with these guys. you never know. >> any prediction is perilous here. but it's always struck me, if it is going to be, it's going to be at the very last second or after we go over the cliff. >> jonathan, are we going to come out on the drive way and sing kumbaya? >> i doubt it given the video you just showed. that's not minority leader pelosi heading to the microphones in the driveway. it looks like she's on west executive drive trying to get the hell out of dodge. >> looking for her car. that's right. >> which could be a good sign. if no one is coming to the microphones and they're keeping it close, maybe they could get to something on 11:59:55 on december 31st. >> you guys have a great new year.
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in 2012 the gop circus came to town and when the votes were counted, the clowns, they were sent packing. here is a very special end of the year edition of "top lines." step right up.
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>> no, no, no, no. >> shucky ducky. >> got to love that, right? >> what's up gangsters? >> the next president of the united states, paul ryan. >> my veins run with cheese, bratwurst, a little spotted cow, leinie's. >> we will have the first permanent base on the moon. >> any old girlfriends here? >> maybe i should just do all the talking. >> i love you, ladies and women. >> i love you, women. >> binders full of women. >> today has been awesome, girl. >> whoa. >> i hope i am the tim tebow of the iowa caucuses. >> it's bull [ bleep ]. come on, man. >> okay, libya.
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>> come on, man. >> becky-stan. >> do you think reverend wright is off limits in this campaign? >> it's called romnesia. >> worst republican to put up against barack obama. >> i'm not concerned about the very poor. >> oops. >> i can't be perfect. >> we don't need a ma'amby pamby leader. >> pumping a little iron. >> i got bit by a penguin. >> those small animals can be fer row shis. >> the naacp invites me, i'll go to their convention. >> i prepared a small chart here. >> arithmetic. >> it would take me too long to go through the math. >> stupid people are ruining america. "america". >> what a snob. >> sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. >> sometimes the best is not the greatest, but it's the best. >> okay.
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>> i'm not going to shut up. it's my turn. >> start packing. >> what would you like to say to mr. romney? >> good luck tonight. really. >> it was not a spontaneous demonstration? >> please proceed. can you say that a little louder, candy? >> he did call it an act of terror. >> it's our turn now. >> president obama has been re-elected for a second term. >> i just called president obama to congratulate him on his victory. >> blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. all right, so? >> good times. let's get right to our panel. toure is co-host of "the cycle" here on msnbc and jimmy williams is an msnbc contributor. come on, guys, when you see that, don't you just get nostalgic for the campaign. it's the talk of the 47%, free stuff, and the latest from tagg romney that apparently his dad
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never really wanted the job anyway, right? >> the clown car is so stuffed what mall aproposeisms and other stuff. we didn't know rick perry forgetting to name some -- and newt gingrich's press release and any number of comments from him. >> but there's more. let's take a look at what i'm going to call the most monumental piece of found that didn't make it into that montage. >> there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. and so my job is not to worry about those people. i'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. >> i didn't want to disappoint. >> we've got to see that. i'm not sure and i wonder what jimmy would say about this, i don't know if that's the moment
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when the election was lost. i think when romney said self-deport and offended millions of hispanics and losing that community for good, that is the moment that it was truly lost. after that the ship had already sailed. we were in garbage time and didn't realize it. >> jimmy, let's not forget the war on women which was all in our heads, we had todd akin, rush limbaugh's comment on sandra fluke. >> transvaginal probes. >> voter suppression, the paul ryan budget, i didn't build that. and accusing the administration of fudging the jobs numbers p.m. >> and the polls. >> and mitch mcconnell, so much for making the president a one-term president. what was your favorite blunder? >> i'll go with "d" which is all of the above. it's just like -- i mean, really, everything was so collectively beautiful. here is what on election night
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sitting in 30 rock, this is what i wrote and this sums up all of these things but in one line. tonight we've turned a corner away from the politics of dog whistling from telling gay americans that separate but equal is okay and from telling women that it's a-okay to legislate their bodies. this is what's wrong with the republicans. they have got to figure out that in the next 30 years they're going to be 100 million more latinos in this country and if they say self-deport, they're not going to do so. you can't tell women to do this to their bodies and you can't tell gay people we like you and we want you to vote for us but we think you're second-class citizens. you have a confederacy of dunces and the party of republicans is a terminally ill gop. if they don't get into the 21st kren ri, they're going to be left behind with the cleavers who didn't exist, by the way. >> one of the things i thought was most stunning was, i mean, literally romney thought he was going to win. why? because they didn't read the census.
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the census. >> the census. >> and after the fact it was where did all those black people come from? >> they didn't expect the obama people to work as hard as they did even though there are more obama offices in florida than there were romney offices in america. amen to everything jimmy said. i agree with everything you said and also note the clint eastwood yelling at the chair moment is sort of symbolic of the entire gop, and the gop is clint eastwood and they're yelling at or disagreeing with an imagined obama who does not actually exist. if they critique the real obama, they might have had a better chance of wooing those independents who are disaffected republicans but when they're doing this extreme thing that rush limbaugh is actually beginning the thought process -- he's the thought leader, it's never going to actually work out for you. that is not realistic. they're living in the alternate reality when even megan kelly has to say, is that real or are these just things you tell yourself as a republican to make yourself feel better?
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>> jimmy, to that point, math, i feel like the big triumph of math. who knew math would be one of the big stories of 2012? >> in the building behind us they count -- at least sometimes they count votes, sometimes they don't. the great irony is when it comes to elections, you have to count for the number of people that vote for you and the number of people that vote against you. i don't understand why they can't count. listen, if their number one priority in the country is the fiscal cliff, if it's all about the debt and the deficit and they can count to $16 trillion, you think they would be able to count to 16 million votes but they can't seem to do that. that's an inherent problem. listen, the base of the republican party is dying. old, white people, my ancestors, my family, they're dying. and if you don't expand your base, your base goes away. if you don't do that, they're going to go away as a party. and we just went through all the things that they talked about and they still don't seem to get it.
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it's kind of bad. >> so, toure, there were so many republican mishaps and miscalculations but none i would say more disconnected from reality than this one. let's just take a watch since we're going down memory lane. juf to be careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to count. >> maybe not so fast. >> thanks a lot. thank you. great to have you guys here. >> that's awkward. >> i mean -- >> that's awkward. >> here is the thing, we saw that. and then after the election we heard about free stuff and we heard all these various rationalizations but if you look at what's been going on in the last couple days like in the fiscal cliff conversations, it feels like the republicans don't actually -- they didn't get the memo, they lost, aged they lost big, right? >> they lost big. because they don't have a big tent, they have a very small tent, it definitely seems they don't understand that we've continued on their -- first they're the party of the wealthy.
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that's one major reason they lost. we continued on that with the fiscal cliff. they also lost because they became the party of illegitimate rape where liberals and democrats are once fighting a losing battle. now it's become what do we do in the case of rape and incest which is a total losing thing for them. >> when you're barely -- when you've barely had sex basically. >> right. now we're dealing with the party of glocks. when liberals try to take away everyone's guns, that's a losing argument for democrats. now it's everybody has a right to get a glock or bushmaster. i don't know if that's a winning argument long term or is good for the country. >> did the republicans learn anything? is there any lesson you would advise them to take into 2013? >> you know, i think that -- it's like dealing with children. you want -- you have got to be for something, right? this is the problem. the republican party, and we all have very good republican friends. i don't hate republicans like some people in the country do.
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i like republicans. by the way, i have to defeat somebody. >> put your hand down. we don't hate, we're not haters. >> we're not haters. >> but you have to be for something. you have to be for people. you have got to be for their equality and for their privacy and for their rights, and i don't just mean their second amendment rights. i mean all of the amendments. >> but they are for something. they are for something. they are for a "mad men" world. that's what they're for. >> we've moved on from the "mad men" world. it's time for them to get with the program. >> time for "modern family." >> thanks, you guys. have a great new year. coming up, we'll turn to a democratic member of congress for her reaction to today's showdown at the white house. i'm glad we got cdw and cisco to design our data center.
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the big white house meeting on the fiscal cliff wrapped up just moments ago.
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the president met for one hour and five minutes with speaker boehner and other congressional leaders. none of the participants spoke to reporters on the way out of the white house, but all of washington is waiting with bated breath to find out what was said and if anything was actually decided. we're going to go to washington and check in with representative she'll l ly jackson lee. obviously members of congress, you came back in anticipation of reconvening on sunday. i'm wondering if you're hearing anything out of the meeting and if you're hopeful a deal can be reached. >> silence is sometimes golden and i have been drinking my starbucks come together coffee all day long. i'm hoping the president served the leadership while they were at the white house. silence, as i said, may be a good sign. frankly, i believe it's important for the leadership to get back to fellow leaders and members possibly to run by them what i believe was a proposal that the president offered, either come up with by your own
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proposal or take my plan, which the president has always had a plan. i think it's insulting and outrageous to suggest that the president wasn't ready to go day one. november 6 he came forward with a plan, and that was what the american people said. simply vote on the quarter of a million, extend the unemployment, look at ways you can save through medicare savings that do not touch benefits and, karen, may i say something to all of my constituents who have been calling, whether we slide through the cliff or go over the cliff, we will not touch social security, medicare, medicaid, or veterans benefits, but we will, of course, cause substantial damage to middle class americans by them seeing their tax bills go up almost $3,500. we have got to stop this slippery slope right now. >> congresswoman, to that point, what nbc news was reporting that the president, as you say, was not going to offer a new deal but the dynamics of the conversation were more likely to be to speaker boehner and to
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minority leader mcconnell and the senate, what can you get done? the posture of the democrats over this week has been the senate passed something that was a good compromise, boehner seems to think he couldn't get it done. does the fact that the clock is running down create additional pressure for the republicans to actually come to the deal and at least try to cut some kind of deal on just the bare minimum? >> here is my message to them. jump in the water. you'll like it. it's warm, it's good. it's a compromise. frankly, we can get something done with a combination of democratic votes. i'm sure leader pelosi, who had some tough times as speaker, she managed to get it done. >> yes, she did. >> she got it done. let's follow the road map. but more importantly, with democrats and with some members of the republican house and in the senate, we can actually get a deal done. i think the tragedy is, of course, that rather than adhering to the middle class americans, women, single parents, we're listening to
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grover norquist and unfortunately the tea party has been distorted. i took a little opportunity today to read about the historic i think 1773 when the tea partiers, boston tea partiers threw tea into the boston harbor. they were fighting for the colonies, for our independence, fighting for america. what are the tea party advocates fighting for now, that's not america. to see our economy troubled by the fact that the markets are nervous about going over this slippery slope. if that doesn't touch your heart on middle class americans seeing their tax bill go up enormously or $109 billion in immediate cuts in places where we probably can't cut. we cut $1.2 trillion and if i can say this one point, can you believe it on this day as we are looking for a solution someone has come up with the idea, i'm not going to raise the debt ceiling unless you give me another $1.2 trillion in cuts in medicare. let's stop the one upsmanship. i'm ready to vote on sunday to make it work and to make it work
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with a compromise. let's come tocchet and we can do this job. >> all right. you heard it here. thank you, congresswoman sheila jackson lee. i also hope you get to vote on sunday and you get to vote on a good deal. >> thank you. coming together with coffee. >> all right. when we come back, more from the halls of congress and today's main attraction at the white house. [ male announcer ] playing in the nfl is tough. ♪ doing it with a cold, just not going to happen. vicks dayquil -- powerful non-drowsy 6-symptom cold & flu relief. ♪ no matter what city you're playing tomorrow. [ coughs ] [ male announcer ] you can't let a cold keep you up tonight. ♪ vicks nyquil -- powerful nighttime 6-symptom cold & flu relief. ♪
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the highly anticipated white house meeting between president obama and congressional leaders ended just a short time ago and it lasted just about an hour or so. now, we've yet to hear anything from any of the participants, and nbc's mike viqueira is live on capitol hill. mike -- >> karen, yeah, forgive me i'm looking at my black bery -- >> i've got mine. we're standing by waiting for some news of something, right? >> exactly.
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i have got a couple e-mails out looking for readouts of w457d ov what happened over there. >> having been on both sides of this as a staffer, sometimes the fact that nobody came out and said anything -- >> you took the words right out of my mouth, and i was going to say you have experience in these things. the fact they haven't all rushed to the microphones and delivered withering scorn on each other. they've only been out for about 15 minutes, maybe we need to give a little more time. maybe that's a positive thing. what we do know, karen, heading into this is that the president was sticking by his original proposal more or less. he had gone back down from the $400,0 4 $40,000 level back to his original $250,000. that's what he was going to put on the table along with some other things. clearly not something designed to gather a lot of republican support, certainly not in the house and probably not in the senate either, but there was some anticipation that mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, might offer a
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counterproposal, and there might be some wiggle room and room to negotiate around that. you know, karen, you know, at this point everybody is pretty clear that the overwhelming sentiment in washington and belief is we are, indeed, heading over that cliff, but we'll wait to see if there's any daylight, anything emerging from that meeting that would give people a little bit more optimism to think that a deal can be struck by midnight on monday into tuesday. >> i'm sort of reading the silence that perhaps both sides are going back to their respective corners and trying to see what they can sell. here is the question. you've got house republicans back. in theory they're going to reconvene on sunday. does that really give us enough time to get something passed? >> yeah. you know what? people raise this issue and they raise all the procedural hurdles in the house and in particular the senate. i got to tell you, if they decide to do something and they want to get out of town, they can pretty much pass their hands over something. there's the filibuster, all sore points when we talk about congressional procedure and how
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frustrated people get with congress' inability to act but act quickly when the time comes. but if they have the votes, they can declare the sky green and the glass blue. . they can say the sun rises in the west -- >> and if everybody sticks to the talking points, it is the truth, right? >> exactly. consistency, clarity, what's the other one -- anyway. if they have the votes, they can do that. i just don't think that everything that we've seen over the course of the last month, two months, in particular last friday when plan "b" crashed and burned with that income level at $1 million, how it's logical or reasonable to believe that they're going to be able to come up with a solution before we go over that cliff, karen. >> nbc's mike viqueira keeping us honest with the very latest. keep that blackberry right by you. >> reporter: got it. thanks. >> we'll be right back to "clear the air" on 2012. questions?
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it's time now to "clear the air." one of the key takeaways from 2012 heading into what we know will be a busy 2013 is the power of individual americans. in 2008 a broad coalition of american voters came together to make history and elected america's first african-american president. in 2012 again an expanded electorate comprised of diverse coalition of voters, they were browner, younger, and led by women were the critical factor in not only re-electing the president but also standing up and standing against racism and fearmongering, refusing to let our country slide backwards. exit polls showed a much more progressive issue landscape consist went a millennial generation that's more fair-minded, less ideological and with a deep concern for policy issues. it was a beautiful thing to see that despite the millions spent